All posts in recipes

October 7, 2014

My CSA share this week included a monstrous pile of parsley. Half of it was frozen into ice cubes for future soups, some of it went into a frittata, a handful was stirred into a tomato sauce that was served with polenta, but I wanted to make sure the rest of it a chance to shine on its own. I set out to make tabbouleh, but things did not go according to plan once I went shopping. I passed on the tomatoes for a gorgeous pomegranate and bulgur was nowhere to be found, so I went home and made something that wasn’t quite authentic tabbouleh, but sort of a transition into fall tabbouleh. Tabbouleh is a Lebanese salad, made primarily with parsley and a handful of mint, with flecks of bulgur (cracked wheat), chopped tomatoes, and coated with a lemon and olive oil dressing that begs to be sopped up with copious amounts of bread. It’s not uncommon to see tabbouleh recipes that use couscous, quinoa, or millet instead of bulgur, but I used crushed walnuts here. Since discovering pomegranate and walnut stew a few years ago, I’ve learned that pomegranates and walnuts make a great pair.

This makes a good side dish to just about any Middle Eastern meal, but it’s especially delicious with a little tahini sauce or hummus rolled up in a piece of flat bread. I’d say this serves 6 to 8 as a side dish, but I keep sneaking into the kitchen several times a day to take bites out of it straight from the container, so who knows. It’s almost gone and I’m already itching to make another batch.

Pomegranate Walnut TabboulehNote: to avoid soggy tabbouleh, let the parsley and mint dry before chopping. This can be done with a strainer and paper towels, but a salad spinner will be your best friend here.

Chop the parsley, mint, and onions with your sharpest knife. De-seed pomegranate. Place the walnuts in a mortar and crush them with a pestle (or give them a whirl in your food processor). Juice lemon. In a large bowl, mix together the parsley, mint, pomegranate, walnuts, olive oil, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, sumac, allspice, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper until fully incorporated. Give the mixture a taste and add more lemon juice and salt, if necessary. Serve with your favorite Middle Eastern dish or as part of a mezze. Delicious both at room temperature and cold.

September 30, 2014

When I originally posted my mujaddara recipe 4 1/2 years ago, I was pleasantly surprised when it became one of the most popular recipes on the blog. Mujaddara is a rice and lentil pilaf and very near and dear to my heart. When I decided that once and for all I would learn how to cook at the age of 22 (!), it was the first thing I set out to make. All you need is an onion, rice, lentils, olive oil, and salt. How hard could it be? Not very, it turns out, but it took several attempts and fine tuning to get it just where I wanted. In the years since I posted the recipe, I usually don’t make it “as is” unless I’m serving it as a side dish.

On those nights when the pantry and fridge are looking scarce and I don’t know what to make, mujaddara is a reliable friend since I almost always have the ingredients handy. The base recipe remains the same, but I like to dress it up as much as possible with whatever I can scrounge up. You know those forlorn jars that live in the fridge door? That jar of red bell peppers? Sundried tomatoes? Hearts of palm? Old hot sauce? Harissa? That almost empty bag of frozen peas? The remaining bits of cashews shoved in to a corner of the cupboard? This is their time to shine, along with any other odds and ends in your fridge, freezer, and pantry that you may have forgotten about. Feel free to play around with spices, too. A little bit of coriander or pinch of cardamom work well here. It’s a truly everything but the kitchen sink kind of dish.

The recipe below includes my latest version of mujaddara deluxe as I call it, along with some ideas for other variations. While I prefer to caramelize one onion per serving when making mujaddara, I only had one here.

Heal oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium low heat. When hot, add the onions. Add the onions and a few dashes of salt, stirring every few minutes, for 30 minutes. Turn the heat up a bit and continue cooking until the onions until they are a deep, golden brown, another 15-20 minutes or so. Set skillet aside.

In the meantime, prepare the lentils and rice according to their package directions. Some people prefer to cook the lentils and rice together in the same pot, but I find that this results in overcooked lentils, so I always cook them separately. About 30 seconds before the rice is ready, drop in the frozen peas. When the lentils and rice are ready, pour them into a colander to drain out the water.

Mix together the lentils and rice in a big pot. Add salt, pepper, a couple glugs of olive oil, most of the caramelized onion, parsley, pickled sweet peppers, sundried tomato, and almonds. Heat until the mujaddara is warm, add more salt and pepper to taste.

Serve in bowls and garnish with the remaining caramelized onions. Serve warm and gobble it up!

September 23, 2014

This year, I’m determined to right the wrongs from last Thanksgiving and Christmas. Just 10 minutes into Thanksgiving dinner prep, I sliced off a chunk of flesh from my finger. The rest of my afternoon consisted of bleeding and watching the Forsyte Saga and Quantum Leap (yes, I’m a very cool person) while Cory took over dinner. Dinner was still delicious, but it put a damper on the day I hadn’t experienced the likes of since Thanksgiving ’95. That was the year my dad thought it would be a great idea to show my extended family a home video of me singing, dancing, and pretending to be the great Cornholio from Beavis and Butthead. These days, embarrassing myself is one of my favorite hobbies and you can find a clip from that video on YouTube. I think it’s adorable now, but at age 10? Mortifying. As for my homemade Christmas gifts, all but the buckeyes ended in disaster. We didn’t even get to visit family due to a power outage. So here I am, many moons later, gearing up to shower friends and family with tasty homemade treats.

First up, coffee liqueur! When I was a wee one, having Kahlua in the house was a rare and very special thing that my parents would use for making White Russians. Those are nice and all, but I also recommend using coffee liqueur almost anywhere you would vanilla. It’s a simple way to give baked desserts and goods a little bit of “ooh, what’s in this?”. Adding just a small amount can go a long way. We’ve been putting coffee liqueur in smoothies, coffee, hot chocolate, chocolate milk, cookies, popsicles, and drizzling over ice cream. Your coffee liqueur will be ready in about 4 weeks. Technically, you can pop it open whenever you’d like, but it’s best to allow the vanilla to infuse for 4 to 6 weeks. It’s so worth it.

Damn girl, where did you got those bottles?

I love swing top bottles. The bottles pictured above are from World Market. I must’ve bought them on sale because they’re a little more expensive on the website, but Amazon sells the same bottles for about twice as much. If you’re in Portland, Kitchen Kaboodle has a huge selection of glass bottles on the cheap. Want a really large bottle? IKEA sell 34 ounce bottles for just $4. Maybe keep that one for yourself and give the smaller ones away? That’s what I’m doing!

I actually doubled this recipe so I could keep some for myself and give away to others. If you don’t really care for vodka, try this with rum or bourbon. Admittedly, I’ve only used vodka but I’ve had a lot of success making vanilla extract with both bourbon and rum.

Heat sugar and water in a large pot over medium heat. Stir often until sugar is completely dissolved. Then, add the espresso and stir until it has been fully dissolved. Remove from heat and set aside. Mix in vodka, bourbon, or rum.

Split and scrape the vanilla beans and stir the seeds into the coffee mixture. Drop vanilla beans into your bottle or jar (cut them in half if using multiple jars or bottles). Then carefully funnel the mixture into each jar(s) or bottle(s). Give each bottle a shake every few days. The liqueur will be ready in 4 to 6 weeks. Enjoy!

September 17, 2014

Looking through some of the recipes I’ve shared here, it’s easy to spot a pattern. Vegetables? Roast ’em. Need a sauce? Some variant of yogurt and/or tahini. With lots of garlic. Some things just work though, and I just can’t get enough of roasted vegetables with yogurt or tahini sauce. This is my current favorite way to serve carrots. They’re coated in harissa, which is a North African hot pepper paste, roasted until browned, and served with a generous serving of garlic yogurt sauce. This dish pairs perfectly with a big bowl of mujaddara.

Not sure where to find harissa? It can be found at Middle Eastern and gourmet grocery stores. If you don’t have (or want to buy) harissa, just use your favorite hot sauce. The results won’t be the same, of course, but it will add that spicy kick to the dish that the yogurt helps offset.

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Slice carrots in half and place in a roasting pan. Mix the olive oil, harissa, coriander, coriander, salt, and pepper in a small bow. Coat the carrots in the harissa and olive oil mixture. Place in the oven and roast for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce by mixing together the yogurt, garlic, salt, and pepper. After the carrots have been roasting for 20 minutes, remove them from the oven and turn them over. Add a little more olive oil if it seems dry. Place back in the oven and roast for another 30 minutes, or until the carrots are browned and caramelized. This may not be ready for an additional 10 or so minutes, but check on the carrots after 30. Some carrots may be ready before others, depending on the thickness of the carrot. Serve over yogurt and garnish with dried mint.

September 9, 2014

Tired of zucchini yet? I’m not not ready to let go of summer vegetables yet, but I’m making batch after batch of soup as the temperatures begins to dip down. Heat, serve, and store back in the fridge — one of my favorite ways to eat. I love the gentle and sweet anise flavor of fennel, but I recommend going easy on the garlic here. Four cloves were added to this batch of soup, but I was initially tempted to toss in the entire bulb. I’m glad I didn’t, otherwise the fennel wouldn’t have had the opportunity to shine through. If your fennel includes stalks and fronds, save the fronds to make pesto. I added a little bit of of the pesto to the soup for garnish, but reserved the rest of it for pizza.

As an aside, if you are visiting or live near Detroit, the Arab American Museum hosts a food walking tour of Dearborn. So bummed I didn’t know this tour existed until after I moved. Please eat everything ever from Shatila so I can live vicariously through your stomach.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, wash and prepare vegetables. Lay zucchini, fennel, potatoes, onion, and garlic on a pan. Use your hands to thoroughly coat the vegetables in olive oil. Sprinkle some salt and pepper and place in the oven. Roast for 35 minutes.

While the vegetables are roasting, prepare the pesto (optional). Blend all the ingredients except for the oil in a food processor, scraping down the sides, processing again, and repeat until it’s formed a paste. With the machine running on low, slowly drizzle in the oil until the mixture transforms into a loose sauce. Scrape down the mixture in the food processor, as needed. Give the pesto a taste and adjust the amount of cheese, lemon, and salt to your liking.

When the vegetables are ready, remove them from the oven and transfer them to a stock pot. Add vegetable broth and bay leaf. Bring to a boil over medium heat, lower the temperature and simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Remove bay leaf from the pot. Working in batches, blend the soup in a food processor or blender, or just use an immersion blender if you have one, until the soup is smooth. Return the soup back to the pot, then add the nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Season to taste, and serve. Garnish with some chopped up nuts, olive oil, and a small dollop of pesto.